


Pinot Noir but it's Ginger Ale

by TopHat



Category: DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: M/M, Metafiction, Shipping, soft bois
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:27:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27465664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TopHat/pseuds/TopHat
Summary: Clark asks Bruce all the wrong questions. Best read with a glass of tart grape, 14.7% or harder, and morray's "quicksand" playing in the background.
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 1
Kudos: 41





	Pinot Noir but it's Ginger Ale

Clark was directed through the grand foyer of Wayne Manor by Alfred to the reading room, where he sat in a chair that probably had a price tag greater than his yearly salary. “Would you care for refreshments of some variety, Mr. Kent.”

“No thanks,” Clark replied, waving his hand dismissively. “And you can call me Clark. We know too much about one another for ‘Mister’s’.”

“A decidedly midwestern view,” Alfred replied, his tone too amused to be insulting. “Master Wayne will be along shortly. For now, make yourself at home.”

Clark sat down as the older man left, noting that the value of the chair was probably earned. One could say a lot about Bruce Wayne’s extravagances, but not that they weren’t with a purpose. In defiance of his station the man had seemed to find a way to balance conspicuous consumption with value, form and function, connotation and meaning. Each motion, though calculated to portray the image of a vain, deluded airhead, could not help but direct the wealth and power of one of the most dangerous men on the planet towards a greater control over his world.

In the same way, the Wayne’s personal library (distinct from the half-dozen Wayne libraries which spotted Gotham City) was a place of labor which relied upon the implicit luxury of such a collection to hide its true nature. A flash of x-ray vision showed that each page bore notes, had sections underlined, was festooned with references to other texts scrawled in neat Copperplate along each and every margin. Many were in Bruce’s handwriting, distinctly small and efficient and missing vowels much of the time (presumably for faster transcription), while other notes seemed too poetic to have come from the hand which wrote the League’s briefings.

“To what do I owe the unexpected pleasure?”

After getting a brief view of Bruce’s scar-laced bones Clark shut off his least-ethical power and smiled. “I can’t come here just to chat?”

Bruce shrugged, settling into an armchair opposite Clark. “You can, but usually you do so with a little less forewarning.”

Right. “It’s about the shipping.”

“Ah. That.” A silence settled, and after a few breaths where his heartbeat changed only a little Bruce opened up the globe next to him, which contained a bottle of wine with a label in French, a plastic jug of antifreeze, and a six pack of Canada Dry. “Would you like a drink?”

“I’m good. Why are people shipping us?”

Bruce pulled out a soda can and popped the tab. “Because they’re lonely. Because they’re aroused. Because for whatever reason, two absolute units getting it on is what it takes to rev their motor. Because there’s nothing hotter than twelve inches of raw, turgid, untamed Kryptonian meat plunging into the soft, delicate cleft between a pair of decidedly mortal—”

“If you finish that sentence I will break a million-dollar computer to make a point,” Clark said flatly.

Bruce sipped at the pop. “Why are you really here?”

“I just...” Clark waved at the air in front him, paused, and then inhaled, putting his thoughts in order.

“Superman is a symbol. He is as much a metaphor as a hero. Truth, Justice, and the American Way, no matter how many times I reject my citizenship. I mean a lot of things to a lot of people, and sometimes I mean things I don’t necessarily agree with. With some of those subjects I can take a strong, vocal stance, change how the name Superman gets used, and then turn it into something closer to what I think of when I think of Superman.”

Bruce pulled out a pop can, then tossed it gently over to Clark. “Like the lunchboxes.”

“By a lunchbox, give a lunchbox,” Clark echoed, opening and sipping at his own beverage. Though there wasn’t a substance on this planet that could truly impair his judgement, the connotations of shooting the shit over beer had never appealed to Clark. Thinking was a sacred act, the conversion of thought to words more holy than the text of the Bible, and to willfully alter that process in the pursuit of the truth seemed at best odd and at worst blasphemous. The sober space of the library felt more pure than open Arctic air sometimes, and provided a much-needed clarity for Clark’s thoughts. “But then there are things which, while I can’t say are  _ wrong _ , are...”

After a few seconds passed, Bruce raised a finger. “Things that are upsetting?”

Clark sighed. “Yes. People upset me.”

For a few minutes, two of the most individually responsible people on Earth sat across from one another, drinking soda in silence.

“Bruce Wayne had fanfic before Batman did,” Bruce said, his tone no different than a discussion of Northwestern White Supremacists. “Reams of it, which started a few months after his return to the Gotham social scene and have not stopped to this day. The websites which host such works are by and large protected by the First Amendment and similar free-speech laws, and where the area is more gray risks being defined in a way which is fundamentally opposite to the spirit of the Bill of Rights.”

He grabbed another can of soda and popped the lid. “After a brief conversation with my lawyer, I concluded that it would be easier to pretend as if the fanfic of my lived life and the death of my parents did not exist, rather than try to track down the authors and inform them that they were pulling corpses out of graves.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Bruce stared at the open drink, as if somewhere in the amber liquid lay a truth. “I shouldn’t have derailed the conversation like that.”

“No no no, it’s okay,” Clark insisted, putting his ginger ale aside, both palms up. “Let’s just de-escalate a little.”

Once he saw a little less disassociation in Bruce’s blank gaze, Clark spoke up again. “It’s uncomfortable.”

“It doesn’t get better. Only more distant.” Bruce shrugged, standing up. Clark followed him shortly after, resisting the urge to scan the grounds for potential destinations. He’d learned a long time ago that Bruce had made his home as Kyrptonian-proof as possible, and shortly thereafter learned not to take it personally. “Most days I simply don’t think about it. When I do, I simply place it under the list of wrongdoings that I’m incapable of effectively combating.”

“That doesn’t seem healthy.”

“It’s not.” They were heading to the gardens. They’d been arranged by Martha Wayne, then kept by Alfred forever after. Clark had learned that from the butler, weeding one lazy afternoon while chatting about the man in the cowl with his employee-come-father-figure, a disclosed fact with the unstated clause that it was not to be shared. “I haven’t found a better way to deal with it, so instead I come here to be happy.”

Martha Wayne had not had a good sense for landscaping. Flowerbeds were excessively shaded, peonies were places next to oak tress, and the trellis was a mess of proper ivy and hanging pots. It was something sprung fully undefined from the mind of a third grader, chaotic and disorganized and a riot of seasonal blooms next to perennials only kept alive by the hard work of a master gardener, like a Cordon Bleu Chef asked to make an authentic McDouble. Clark had seen enough properly-constructed green spaces to know the difference between a professionally-designed meadow and a mid-life crisis plot, and the Wayne’s personal greenhouse (distance from the property’s backyard, constructed in a much more sensible manner) fell far closer to the longer end of the spectrum.

The smile which blossomed across Bruce’s face upon seeing the mess of contradictory color themes, however, cemented the idea that beauty lay in the eye of the beholder for Clark.

“I can’t change them,” Bruce said, putting his can to the side and smiling at Clark with an innocent, oblivious hope that reminded him of all the reasons he loved the man. “So instead I try to wish in spite of their desires.”

Clark extended his hand. “Should we take a walk, love?”

Calloused, scarred digits wrapped around Clark’s own. “I would enjoy that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, OpArrow, for beta reading this fic


End file.
